It may seem like an absurd question: Should arts groups stop charging ticket prices? Interestingly, the reason you might think it's an absurd question may differ from the reasons cited by other people.For Laura Millin, the question may not be absurd, but it's certainly a no-brainer. The executive director of the Missoula Art Museum strongly believes that cultural experiences - at least the kind you'd find at a civic museum - should be free.
“We feel that as a museum, we're already fighting an elitist stigma that comes with the territory of being a museum,” says Millin. “So to be sure that we really are serving everyone and inviting everyone and making the perceived barrier for entry as low as possible, that's the basis for our commitment to our free policy.”
She's also sometimes frustrated by how few people realize that the MAM's free admission policy is an unusual - and costly - diversion from the standard revenue model employed by other museums around the country.
“Most museums charge a ticket price, and it can be pretty high in some places,” said Millin.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York asks patrons to fork over $20 per visit. The Seattle Art Museum charges $13 (the price is technically voluntary, but you wouldn't know that unless you asked). It's not just the big museums that charge admission; the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings charges $7 - and that's not voluntary.
Millin is well aware of the revenue she's missing by not charging admission. She thinks about it whenever she goes to businesses and individuals in the community, asking for extra funding support on the premise that it helps other people be able to visit the MAM.
But Millin also believes that, every day, she sees the plus side of the choice not to charge.
“Would we have seen 32,000 people come through our doors since the grand opening a year ago if we were charging admission? I really don't think so,” she says. “Granted, at $4 per person (the media ticket price charged by small museums), that would theoretically be $128,000 in money we would have gotten - which is a lot by our budget standards - but there is simply no way I believe we would have gotten the same numbers, or even close to the number of people attending the museum. And I think our cultural engagement with art probably would have suffered as a result.”
So should other arts organizations like the Missoula Symphony Orchestra or Montana Repertory Theater stop selling tickets? Not necessarily, says Millin.
“What we do is such a different game altogether than a ticketed performing art event,” says Millin. “How can you offer that for free? It's so part and parcel with the funding formula that it's hardly comparable.”
Millin isn't alone in thinking that way. On a practical level, not charging for tickets would likely sink the Missoula Symphony Orchestra, according to its executive director, John Driscoll.
“Ticket income is about 35 percent of our overall income, so it's not even close to trivial,” says Driscoll.
While Driscoll recognizes that he could, theoretically, seek additional sponsorship from businesses in the community to make up the difference, he suspects he'd face an uphill battle at best. He points to the MSO's free summer concert in Caras Park: Despite the fact that it draws thousands of people, the concert this year barely broke even, and only did so after 100 reserved seats were sold and volunteers sold bottled water as stop-gap measures.
“In this community, it's increasingly difficult to ask for more and more money from more and more individuals and businesses,” says Driscoll. “We're incredibly grateful for our sponsors, because it must be exhausting to be a business owner in this community and have your phone ring 20 times a day from nonprofits looking for sponsorships.”
Besides that practical consideration, Driscoll has a philosophical problem with not charging for tickets.
“There's got to be some value placed on the high quality performances and the hard work that goes into them,” he says. “People expect to pay money for movies, they expect to stand in line for hours for rock 'n' roll shows and pay for those. There is a lot of cost involved in putting on an orchestra concert, and if the money doesn't come from ticket income, it's got to come from somewhere.”
Here's the rub, though. Anybody with an Internet connection can download top-quality recordings of some of the finest orchestras in the world; anybody with a bit of technical savvy can find those things for free, in abundance.
The anytime, anywhere, no-charge mentality that drives many of today's arts and entertainment consumers is already affecting the music and film industries in tangible ways. Some record labels are finally beginning to bend to pressure to provide un-copy-protected music online; and even some concert presenters - notably Ozzy Osbourne's Ozzfest, which this summer stopped charging for tickets to its multi-band festivals featuring some of the biggest names in heavy metal - are experimenting with ad-sponsored, free-admission models to attract audiences.
“You don't have to leave home to get a smorgasbord of cultural experiences,” says Laura Millin. “You can jump on your computer and just fly. What we offer at a museum, it's a visceral experience that you have to be there to experience. That's an increasingly precious commodity in this hyper-media environment; but nevertheless it's stiff competition.
“It's like the deck keeps getting stacked more heavily against us.”
It is indeed a catch-22. People today increasingly expect their entertainment and art to be free and convenient; the old maxim of “you get what you pay for” is coming undone. Yet it costs money - a lot of money, in some cases - to produce sophisticated, quality cultural presentations.
Beyond the absurdity of an imagined future in which orchestra players would wear logo shirts and play ad jingles between symphonies in order to pay the bills, there is quite a slippery slope when corporate sponsors hold all the purse-strings for arts ensembles.
It's an issue with no easy solution, everyone agrees. Next week I'll wrap up this discussion with a few more thoughts from readers and the blogosphere.
DOVES OF BILLINGS BEWARE
Speaking of Ozzy, I submit to you this, with minimal editorial comment: On the same day that concert promoter AEG Live announced that gentle folk giant James Taylor will perform an Oct. 27 concert at the Adams Center, the company also announced that metal monsters Ozzy Osbourne and Rob Zombie will play a show at the Metrapark in Billings on Nov. 9.
Granted, Billings also gets a concert by Taylor, on Oct. 26.
But we Missoula folks don't get our own Osbourne/Zombie concert.
And while ticket prices haven't been set for all these concerts, one thing has been made clear: Tickets to see Ozz/Zom will cost approximately double the price to see Taylor.
Coincidence, or proof that Satan prefers Billings? You decide.
Reach Joe Nickell at 523-5358 or at jnickell@missoulian.com.
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